


Plant Your Hope With Good Seeds

by IngloriousHeist (Heist)



Series: Thistleverse [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Helmsman, Post-Game, Whostuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-04
Updated: 2014-08-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 11:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/747846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heist/pseuds/IngloriousHeist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS is acting up again, just in time for the Tenth Doctor to meet his favorite nemesis, Alternia's Condesce.<br/>Meanwhile, Karkat Vantas, leader of the Signlessist rebellion and ally of Heiress Feferi Peixes, has gathered his old SGRUB team to rescue one of their own from the Condesce's grip. None of them expect to see a human on board.<br/>The Doctor doesn't expect a handful of young trolls to throw all of time's orderly wobble into mass chaos simply because they feel like it. He also doesn't expect those trolls to recognize him as human.</p><p>In which being cramped together on the SRS Cantown with the Doctor allows everyone to start sorting out their shit; all of the humans have seen and adore Doctor Who; and Karkat's fragile little world gets turned upside-down.</p><p>The main fic of the Thistleverse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

_Nepeta Leijon, SRS Cantown shuttle 1_

            Your name is Nepeta Leijon, and you are getting ready to hunt with all of your furiends! You are so excited your tail is twitching!

            “Nepeta. Please remember to follow the plan and stay with us. This is important.”

            You look at your meowrail and see the lines of tension in his shoulders and the concerned expression he's trying to hide behind his cracked glasses. That works with most trolls, but you are the _mighty huntress_ – rawr! - and you see _efurything_. “I _know,_ Equius. This is really supur impurtant, or else I wouldn't have to bring all of you along!” You climb onto his lap. He's become so much bigger than you these last few sweeps… He's always been bigger, but now when you go to curl up in his lap you actually sort of fit. “I puromise to stay with the group, okay? I won't even kill anyone I'm not supposed to! I'll be good, I swear. We'll do the mission right and fry this fish! See, no cat puns.”

            “Well. I w00ld neighver put it pasture self to hoof snuck one in there when I wasn't looking.”

            Your grin would reach both your ears if those weren't on the top of your head. He isn't quite smiling, but it's as good as your purobably going to get at this point. You stretch up and _boop_!  his nose with yours. “Heehee, AC is a quick and nimble huntress! You will nefur catch her cat puns! Nefur!”

            “Do we need to get you two a nice, soft pile? Because the best we can do right now are some pointy weapons!”

            “Shut up, Vriska. Let them have their adorable pre-mission feelings jam.”

            Equius is blushing, you can tell without looking. The Scourge Sisters are sitting next to each other, across the room from you and Equius. Vwiskers is glaring at Terezi, but their shoulders are touching, so you know...something. You know you're going to spend several hours staring at your shipping wall, especially since _Mr. Ampurra_ of all trolls is leaning against Terezi's other side, checking over his rifles. Terezi is grinning, both hands clasped around the middle of her cane, and look- uh, _facing_ directly ahead of her where there's nothing to look at. You should be used to that by now but it's still, um, what's that word? _Disconcerting._

            “We're alright, Vwiskers, thank you for asking,” you mew. Just like you told Equius, you're going to be _good_ , and that means being polite, too. Even if it's too a huge bitch like Vwiskers (Well, okay, that was cheeky and you know it. But she deserves it).

            She's transferred her glare to you now, but Terezi just laughs. “When are you going to come up with a catty nickname for me, lioness?”

            Equius sighs in his 'oh no they're encouraging her cuteness' kind of way. You gnaw on a fingernail, discreetly bumping your head gently against his chin. “I'll have to think about it, dragonyyd. I don't know why I don't already have one.”

            “ALRIGHT, cut this dumb shIT out. We're approaching the target.” Karkitty makes an admirable effort to shout quietly, you think, as he spins around in his chair to grumble at the shuttle. “EQUIUS?”

            “Y-yes, sir.” You leap to the floor as Equius reaches for his control panel. “The scrambler is engaged.”

            “Good. Be ready to mOVE, guys.” Karkitty turns his navigation panel over to Kanaya and settles in her spot next to the doors. You can tell he's nervous by the way his strife specibus interface keeps flickering over his shoulder. You don't see Gamzee move, but suddenly he's there next to Karkitty, putting an arm around his shoulders. Karkitty squirms a little, his sickle sliding into his hand for a second before vanishing. _Click-click!_ You very distinctly don't hiss at Gamzee, but your claws itch.

            You get back in your own chair, rest your head against your meowrail's shoulder, and wait.  

 

* * *

 

  _The Doctor,  The TARDIS_

 

            The Doctor has just ended up in the wrong part of space. _Again_. Space-space, too, not random-planet-in-space space. Here he is, drifting in the void, and he can't figure out what went wrong, or why the TARDIS won’t take him somewhere else.

            “I've checked the coordinates precisely 34 and a half times and I put them in correctly. The TARDIS couldn't have possibly have decided to drop me off _here,_ there's nothing _here_ -” he leans out the door, staring into the blackness for a moment before spinning around and sprinting back to the controls. The door closes amicably behind him. “- unless you _did_ , but that doesn't seem like your kind of prank, or is it?” He pauses. The ship doesn’t respond. “...Nah. Must be something else. Rose, would you -”

            He stops, one hand still on the control panel. No, Rose wouldn't. He didn't have Rose anymore. She is far, far away; too far for him to reach.

            While the Doctor generally refrains from cursing, now seemed like the appropriate time for an expletive. And that's when the TARDIS began to shake.

 

* * *

 

  _Nepeta Leijon, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Deck 8_

 

            You hiss impatiently. Softly, but impatiently. You could _totally_ take out those two drones all by yourself! But they want you to wait.

“No loud fights – we don’t want them to know we’re here for as long as possible,” Karkitty had said, and he’s the leader

            None of you know why the alarms didn't sound when you first docked, or why there weren't any guards in Bay 3, but Terezi said something about hoofbeasts that made Equius blush and it was decided very quickly that you should all move on. You suppose Karkitty knows best. He is your leader, after all, and he's really smart and sweet and there's your cue! The drones slump over in their poor facsimile of sleep and you POUNCE, sinking your claws into one's neck. With one quick motion you rip its head off. Black blood splatters everywhere and the drone falls, but you're already on the second one. You've landed lower this time, one set of claws dug into its shoulder. The other you slip between the armor plates on its belly, disemboweling it. Then, because you are a thorough and merciful huntress, you swing up onto its shoulder, captchaloging and de-captchaloging your claws as you do (quicker and easier than trying to pull them free), and decapitate this one, too. As it crumples you jump off its shoulder, roll to break your fall, and skid to a halt on your feet, ready to fight again. There's no need to, but you are the best huntress and you like to be careful.

            Not all prey dies as easily as drones do.

            Your friends hurry past as you lick your claws clean. Karkitty is grumbling about something. Karkitty always grumbles, though! It's cute, or as your moirail says, _en-deer-ing_. Equius pawses for a second. “Was not the mutant blood supposed to destroy the other drone?”

            “He was taking too long!” you inform him. “I thought we were in a hurry.”

            “We are!” Aradia stops, too, wings fluttering. “And you did that in 9.32 seconds. You've saved us half a minute, so come on!”

            “Nepeta, stop licking the blood on your claws. You might become ill.” Equius gingerly takes your paw and wipes it clean with one of his many towels. You sigh, but allow it. He is such a silly moirail! A little drone blood has nefur to hurt _you_.

            “Hurry up, slowgrubs! Even _Tavros_ is leaving you behind.”

            “You're, uh, supposed to be being, nice, for a change, Vriska.”

            “What's that supposed to mean, loser?”

            “Tavros," Kanaya breaks in, frowning. "This is the kind of inciting behavior we've discussed. And Vriska, eyes forward. This is not the time for your histrionics. Leave Tavros alone, we are on a mission.”

            You giggle and sprint off to your place at the front of the line, Equius at your heels. You're glad those three settled down into the Ashen Quadrant.

 

* * *

 

_The Doctor, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Deck 18_

 

            Nothing good _ever_ comes of cursing, he thinks very quietly as two drones and four blueblooded trolls lead him into the Empress's audience room. It's full of her court, which is made almost entirely of purpleblooded seadwellers. Their ranks are broken by the occasional blue- or greenblooded war hero.

            ...And when did they invent tractor beams, anyways? That's _new._ He believes he's been away from this part of space for much too long. Then again, this part of space never used to be Alternian territory.

            As the Doctor approaches the tall golden throne of Her Imperial Condescension, his guards drop away. He takes the opportunity to step indecently and offensively close to the troll throne. The court’s muffled gasps grew louder when it becomes clear that he, a captured alien, will not bow to their Empress; that he, a captured alien, will in fact look her directly in the eyes and glare at her. Her two personal guards look uncertain as to what to do, especially since their mistress begins to intone without giving them their directions.

            “Hello, Doctor, and welcome to the flagship of the Alternian Empire, seat of Her Imperi-”

            “I'm not in the mood for this.”

            He thinks some of the court might faint.

            _She_ glares at him from her throne, arms still outstretched in mid-dramatic gesture. “You ain't even gonna let me do my elegant queen thing? _Rude._ ”

            The Doctor only stands there, hands in his pockets, and continues to glare back. This isn't the first time he's been on this ship, and it probably won't be the last. In fact, he thinks sourly, he's probably been on this ship more often than anyone here but the Condesce herself.

            “I don’t see an elegant queen, do I? Only a homicidal maniac with an unnatural lifespan and a monstrosity for a mother.”

            “Yeah, she’s somefin, ain’t she?”

            “No! And it’s utterly abhorrent of you to think so.”

            She smirks, light reflecting off her glasses.

            “That is not what I meant!”

            “Reely?” She sweeps off her throne, gets into his space. Her claws prick against the skin of his chin as she lifts his eyes to hers.

            It’s completely unfair for her to use the throne’s pedestal to increase her height like that, but he refuses to complain.

            “Because I think you _missed_ me, Doc,” she continues lowly. “Give me a reason not to send you back to your ship in two pieces held together by my slurry?”

            “I’m not in the mood for this, Meenah,” the Doctor replies, unable to mask the frustration in his voice. “Behave, or I’ll start revealing Imperial Secrets before you can blink.” He steps closer, now; he can smell the fish on her breath. “ _Whale_ , Meenah? What’s it to be?”

            She snarls, silently, as they lock gazes. The entire court is silent… until a seadweller with rather romantic ideations collapses loudly.

            The Condesce growls. “Out! You lot, scram!” She gestures to her court. “You too, drones, you're bout as needed as gills on a rustblood right now.”

            Her court takes the dismissal as a time to flee, and flee they do. The room is empty in moments.

            “Except a lot of rustbloods have gills, don't they, Meenah? I mean, if you didn't murder them all as infants,” the Doctor says quietly.

            Meenah rolls her eyes and descends from her throne, the tangled masses of her hair trailing behind her. “Not this _again_. I am so sicka this shit, buoy. You seariously gotta one track mind. Gotta do beta then that if you wanna keep bein my kismesis and not like one of them hooked goldfish instead.”  She makes a show of lazily slinging her trident over one shoulder before she saunters towards one large, overly-ornate side door. “Except I wouldn't let you be in my court, Doc. I would just KRILL YOU D----EAD.” Her grin is wide and shows a row of pointed teeth. “You comin?”

            The Doctor runs a hand through his disheveled hair before he casually matches her pace. “Oh, you wouldn't kill me, Condy. I doubt you could find someone else who wouldn't kill you the moment your back is turned. Person like you, place like this – you're surrounded by piranha, aren't you?”

            Meenah snorts. “Piranha are little fish. I ain't worried.”

            With the last word came a small siren noise from above. A smooth female voice spoke over it. “Attention all crew. Attention all crew. Several of Her Imperial Condescension’s Imperial Drones have been found destroyed on board. We remind you that the wanton destruction of Her Imperial Condescension’s property is a crime punishable by slavery or death. All non-essential or off-duty personnel are to report to their shiphive wings immediately, pending investigation by Her Most Efficient Imperial Threshecutioner Core. I repeat, all non-essential…”

            The Condesce whips around without warning, nearly tripping or seriously maiming the Doctor with her hair. “No time for games, buoy. S)(IT JUST GOT R---E---EL!”

            The Doctor, still flattened against the wall, watches her go. However, it didn’t take long for him to catch his breath and follow. He just had to decide that her trident was more dangerous than her hair first.

 

* * *

 

  _Nepeta Leijon, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Deck 8_

 

            You claw at the Threshecutioner's eyes, feel the familiar drag as they tear through flesh. Quick as the purrbeast you are, you grab his shoulders and push off, deftly flipping over his head. You bounce off to face the next prey when you hear Equius's punch _crunch_ through the Threshecutioner's skull bones. Aradia's whip wraps around the ankle of someone who had tried to run. You kick him over and slash across his throat. There's no time for you to take captives.

            “That’s the last of them,” Terezi says, wiping her cane clean.

            “Alright." Karkat glances over the lot of you until he finds who he's looking for. "Kanaya?”

            “This is the juncture where we split up, Karkat.”

            “A course it is, let’s get a move on already.”

            “Eridan, shhh.”

            “Aw, _Ter_ …”

            “Right. Aradia, Nepeta, Equius, you know where to go from here?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Good. Terezi, Vr – ”

            “We know, Karkles, don’t worry.”

            “Don't leave Vriska unprotected, we actually need h-”

            “Um, hello? I can protect myself, thank you very much. God Tier, remember?”

            “Vriska, behave,” Kanaya snaps.

            “Don't argue, just do it. Tavros, Eridan, Gamzee, let's move out.”

            “Yeah, we know, Kar, can we just go already?”

            Karkitty is just so brave, leading everyone like this! Equius taps your shoulder and you bound after him. With Aradia as rearguard and you at the front, the three of you are just the cutest little death squad! And, hopefully, the most destructive; those engines won’t know what hit them by the time you’re through!

 

* * *

 

_The Doctor, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Deck 32_

            The Condescension leads the Doctor to the command deck of her ship. The Doctor has to admit that she's become good at this. As she sweeps by, trolls bow to her quickly and move on, wasting no time or motion. Several bluebloods looked terrified, as if the Condesce could smell guilt, but she doesn't pay any attention to them. The Doctor remembers a time when the sight of a troll bowing to her set her teeth on edge and put an amusing tension in her shoulders. That was a long, long time ago, though.

At one point in their swift journey to the bridge, the kismeses pass a redblood speaking worriedly into a phone. The Doctor startles at the sight; he has yet to see anyone lower than a Teal. “No, stop it! You're speaking nonsense. _I'm_ a rustblood; I know that rustbloods don't have gi-”

            The troll girl jerks to a stop. She looks down at where the Condesce's trident is buried in her stomach, and back up at her and the Doctor. Dark red blood burbles from her mouth as she slides to the ground.

            “Someone clean up this mess,” the Condescension calls, shaking blood from her weapon.

            “What was that?” The Doctor dives to the floor, holds the dying rustblood's hand. “That was completely uncalled for, you didn't have to do that.”

            “I'm allowed to cull lowbloods whenever I want to, Doc.”

            The Doctor stares at her before returning his attention to the rustblood. “Listen, do you have a moirail? Come on, you must, troll your color on this ship? Where is your moirail? Come on, who's your moirail? They'll go berserk, you know that. I can't help her – or him, I guess, but – you need to tell me, please.”

            The rustblood coughs wetly - “Guh-...Guuh.” - and dies.

            Behind him, someone screams.

            The Doctor grits his teeth and turns to see a girl dashing down the hallway towards him. For a moment she is all Alternian rage: she glares at him from under her curled horns, two small knives clenched in her white-knuckled grip. She's still keening. He realizes, now, that he has the blood of her moirail on his hands and that is precisely why she is bearing down on _him_ and not his kismesis.

            Before he can react, Meenah's trident flashes. One swipe at the troll girl's legs and she falls flat on her face. The girl begins to get up, but Meenah is too fast. Her trident goes through her back and comes out the other side.

            “You have attacked the kismesis of the Empress outside of honorable combat. The punishment is D----EATH.” The Condesce crows. She stomps on the girl's back and rips her weapon free. The girl has dark blue blood. He can’t help but stare.

            The Doctor gets to his feet and rounds on the Condesce. “That was completely unnecessary.”

            “Heh. Waterever, Doc. No one around here cares who I kill. There ain't any laws against it or nofin. You think you'd be grateful, considering how I just saved your life and all. Someone give him a towel! And clean this.” She thrusts her bloody trident at one of the bystanders. A sweating blueblood hastily stuffs a towel in the Doctor's hands.

            The Doctor wonders if he'll ever forget the look on that either of the dead troll's faces before they died.

            He knows he never will.

 

* * *

  _Nepeta Leijon, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Engineering Deck_

 

            “Nepeta. Over there. Every single wire connecting those two machines, shred.  Aradia, the large turbines in that corner, destroy as many of them as you can. Be thorough.”

            “One minute!” she calls. You glance over. She's frozen a handful of Mechannihilators in time. Her wings beat frantically. “Nepeta, if you please-”

            You don't even hesitate to pounce into the middle of the time stopped group. You know that Aradia can't do anything else while freezing such a large group, and you need to _hurry_. You don't waste time being fancy. Claws through the throat, a disembowelment, hamstring the next with your tail, shred through another's kidneys. They're going to have painful deaths, but a great huntress like you knows sometimes mercy just isn't something you can give.

            As you fight, the sharp pincers of someone’s mind powers digs into your brain. You wince and let her in. _Nepeta, blueblood sneaking up on Equius! Go!_

            You pull your claws from the last one's eye socket and spring towards your meowrail.  The sneaky cat doesn't even notice you until you land on her shoulders and thrust your claws through the back of her throat. _Thank you, Vwiskers,_ you think to her as you rip out the offender's esophagus. You don't think she's heard you – it no longer feels like someone’s crawling around in there – but you never know! Equius sees you and returns to driving his fists through computer servers, doesn't thank you or anything. Then again, he doesn't really have to.

            From your right there's a squeal of tearing metal. Two huge turbines, wrapped in the light of Aradia's powers, rip from their casings and smash together in midair. You prowl away from your meowrail to the wires he'd pointed out earlier. Time to get back to work.

 

* * *

_The Doctor, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Deck 18_

 

 

            Her Imperial Condescension glides onto her command deck and the Doctor trails behind. It's a large, round room; probably larger then strictly necessary, but it is the Imperial Battleship after all. Trolls, the Doctor has found, liked decadence more than they probably should. It's a largely empty room as well. There were two large control panels in the front and back of the room, both manned by two trolls each. Two more trolls each manning singular console flanked a raised dais with another large golden throne that quite clearly belonged to the Empress. Any doubt to her claim was removed by the way she sunk into it, her hair curling around her and trailing off the dais edges.

            Curiously, to the Doctor's thinking, there's another raised platform at the back of the room displaying a large glass tube and yet another console. It had never been there before. Twin ramps curl down and around the sides of the room towards the doors, and so the Doctor, lacking a better option, sprints up a one and...

            ...cannot believe what he's seeing.

            A troll has been strung up within the glass case like a trophy on display. Biotech extends from the ceiling and the floor to engulf the poor thing's limbs. As he watches, some of it shifts: small, needle-like tendrils rip themselves from his skin and reinsert themselves a few centimeters from their origination.  Yellow blood drips from the mask that is drilled – _drilled!_ \- into its brain. Its mouth is open, froth dripping from its mouth. The Doctor reaches into his coat and produces his sonic screwdriver, briefly flashing it towards the casing. His brows furrow at the results. “Soundproof. But why... Is it _screaming?”_ He steps closer. On the glass, above the console, _The Helmsman is Pleased to Serve_ is inscribed in Alternian.

            The Doctor turns to his kismesis, face blank.

            The Condesce isn't paying attention to him at all. She's still into her throne-like chair, great mass of eldrichian hair flung out to the sides. He wishes she still kept it in those long, tight braids. They made it easy to pull her to the trouble, shove her face towards the problem. He would tug her over and make her _look_ at this again, _look_ and remember that this is wrong, and unnecessary. The Alternian Empire could power its ships without this wanton torture, he knew it. _She_ knew it; they had done so for centuries. But there were no braids, not anymore, because Meenah was no longer a young troublemaker running from a trade deals gone awry and picking fights with bluebloods. She was the Empress, over nine hundred years old, and she knows what's wrong with this ship. She just doesn't notice anymore. Or she doesn't care. He can’t tell which is worse.

            He stares at the troll in the casing, wondering if this is a fixed point in time or not. Behind him, the Condesce issues orders to continue on, light speed, full ahead to the next planet. In front of him, the troll's eyes begin to flash. Sparks jump between his horns and his face contorts in pain. The ship begins to jerk forward in space. The Doctor sighs, turning away from the poor victim. This is fixed. Time itself has declared it meant to be. Despite his anger, despite the injustice of it, there is nothing he can do.

            He wonders, briefly, if they didn't kill The Ѱiioniic like he thought they had.

            That's when the screams start coming from the other side of the doorway.

            “Yo, don’t tell me y’all are killing my lil drone-slayers!”

            “There appear to be intruders. They are extremely capable, Your Condescension,” a blueblood from a back console responds, his fingers gliding across a keyboard. “Additional security is on its way to the command deck now.”

            “There _also_ appears to be a problem in Engineering, Your Condescension,” adds the Cerulean who had made the earlier announcement. The blueblood spares a second of his attention to glare at her. “Several drones and a security detail have been dispatched.”

            The Condesce sighs and tosses her hair back. “Any otter problems you thinkin I oughta know aboat, fishies?”

            “Not that we have been able to discern, Your Condescension.”

            The Condesce flicks her fingers towards the door. “Let's sea if they have the STR---ENGT)( to  finish their task, shall we?” A handful of guards stationed around the room take up fighting positions near the doorway in question. Two take up positions next to the Condesce herself.  The Doctor's fingers tighten around his screwdriver as they wait.

            No one in the room ceases working.

            Suddenly, the doors slide open and four blood-spattered trolls leap through.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “ERIDAN, H-!” Kar’s yellin’ somethin’ at you, but you’ve already fired and hit the Condesce in the back. She jerks, burnt flesh sloughin’ off her bones. Her body begins to heal immediately, muscle fillin’ into the gap you just made. The Empress turns toward you, slowly, shark-like teeth bared, and you….
> 
> You feel like you’ve made a very big mistake.
> 
> Again.

_Equius Zahhak,  )(IC Battleship Condescention: Engineering Deck_

 

            Your name is Equius Zahhak, and you are ludicrously calm.

            You really shouldn't be. After all, you and your compatriots have broken onto the battleship of the Imperial Condescension herself, all with the foal - um, goal, of rescuing a _yellowblood_. That a troll of your standing should _condescend_ to _rescue_ , to, to to _talk to..._

It becomes so very, very difficult to cling to the Hemospectrum when the troll in question went through Sgrub with you.

            So you wrench machinery apart. You kill Imperial soldiers and drones by the dozen. You tell Nepeta and Aradia how to cause the most non-lethal damage to the ship. And you don't feel (much) regret.

            If you're honest with yourself, trashing the Engineering deck is a remarkably exhilarating experience. Imperial ships are textbook examples of inefficiency and nauseatingly poor design choices. You could - no, you _have_ done better in your own garage with only Arthour and some robots to assist you. Of course, saying as much is treason, punishable by culling - a fact that had sent Karkat into a frothing rage yet again; Terezi had only grinned like a seadweller and asked you could do as you said. But, as Nepeta says, you are usually not very honest with yourself at all, so it is with a great deal of _regret_ and _solemnity_ that you aid Karkat's ...effort.

            You’re rewiring a navigation terminal so that everything will be off by about fifteen point three five degrees when there’s a hiss and a thud behind you. You turn in time to see Nepeta dragging her claws through an enginihilator’s throat. She grins at you while blood eerily similar to your own drips from her claws. Next thing you know, you’ve smashed a monitor you’d never intended to break and Nepeta’s leaping towards a tangle of wires, her robotic tail lashing behind her.

            Trying to calm down is hard. You hadn’t wanted to let Nepeta come, but there was no way you could have kept her away. She can take care of herself, and this is _your_ Mage of Doom (her words, not yours), and so she’s here. But you’re also never going to let her get hurt again, and you especially won’t let her get hurt for your sake.

            The two things can be difficult to reconcile, at times. You huff to yourself, stop making a – stop making a… _stop making a fist!_ Ah, there. You stop making a fist and return to your wiring. This, here and now, is what is important. All of the things you can’t tell your moirail… they can wait.

            Right.

 

* * *

 

_Eridan Ampora,  )(IC Battleship Condescension, Command Deck_

 

            The doors to the bridge slide open. Kar and Gam clear the first guards and move their fight to the left. You slip through the doorway, slick as can be, throw your back into the wall, and bring Ahab’s Crosshairs up to target. The first Imperial Drone is _exactly_ where you expected it to be. You can’t stop the smirk crawlin’ across your face as you shoot and the familiar rebound slams against your shoulder. Kar and the others kept questionin’ the layout you’d drawn, which hangar you should dock at, and where you said the Drones would be, but you were dead right.

            (Well, Ter didn’t question you. She’s alright, for a blind girl.)

            Your shot cuts clean through the robot’s middle. You jerk the rifle up a bit, to give it more Drone and less hull to bite through. Gotta be careful with Drones; you can smash a hole straight through to the other side and they might still get back up to wreck your shit. The trick is to thoroughly wreck their shit first.

            Ahab’s laser starts to tucker out, so you release the trigger and pull the lever to release the smokin’ ammo cartridge. You captchalogue it and pull a fresh one from your sylladex while you inhale, slam it into place as you spot the second Drone speedin’ across the deck towards where Gam’s wreaking havoc with those clubs of his, exhale as you bring Ahab up to your shoulder, the sound of the ancient weapon’s warming cartridge hummin’ in your ears, and fire another long shot. The beam misses Gam’s wavin’ arm by a foot, carves through a troll he’s fightin’, and hits the second Drone dead center.

            Your name is Eridan Ampora, and you are a fuckin’ pro.

 

* * *

 

_Karkat Vantas, )(IC Battleship Condescention, Command Deck_

 

            Gamzee is really good at putting trolls down, but he isn’t good at making them _stay_ down. Granted, you’d decided (with absolutely no help from Terezi, you are a LEADER, thank you very fucking much) that Gamzee should avoid killing where possible, as you kind of need him to be using that addled thinkpan of his.

            Yes, you are the leader. It’s in your blood. Literally.

            You try not to examine that statement too closely. You’ve said it once before, but you were kind of bluffing, and now….

            Now you dodge the fuck to the side and swing your sickle as hard and fast as you can because for the LOVE of ALL THAT IS GOOD ON THIS PLANET (WHICH ISN’T MUCH), INTROSPECTION IS NOT MEANT FOR MID-BATTLE. Past Karkat is an idiot. End of story.

            (Jade would give you so much flack.)

            Right, battle. You drag your sickle across a fallen soldier’s neck and don’t think about killing. Crying is for your hivestem, not the bridge of an Imperial Ship. Gamzee’s club whistles just above your horns and you don’t think about Gamzee either.

            God, you really need to fucking concentrate. And yet the universe seems to be conspiring against you – AGAIN! – because as you slip around another attacker to see Tavros frantically whispering at the Helmsman rig, and a human pointing some kind of device in Tavros’s direction.

            Wait.

            A human.

            On the lead Alternian Battleship.

            Oh _FUCKING_ HELL!

 

* * *

 

_The Doctor, Present Day, )(IC Battleship Condescention: Command Deck_

 

            The Doctor is practically vibrating with excitement. It’s a rescue mission! It’s a rescue mission and everything has changed! Suddenly a fixed point in time isn’t fixed anymore which is…strange. Weird. Unusual. Also excellent! But bothersome. But everything’s changing, and The Doctor has always been a man of action, if nothing else, and he’s had _millennia_ to watch the Condesce, well, screw everyone else over, and that’s something that gets pretty old pretty quickly. He flicks up his screwdriver, racing through various screens in the effort to find the mechanical release procedures. Some troll is up there already, one with a huge rack like The Summoner of old - but it’s highly unlikely there’s a relation, let’s not be silly here. It’s difficult to keep his customary monologue to himself, but he knows trolls probably won’t take kindly to an alien pointing an apparent weapon at them. Trolls hadn’t encountered humans yet, let alone Time Lords, and they weren’t the friendliest of species. If his assistance was misconstrued, there could be a very bloody and violent end to the scenario, and the Doctor wasn’t fond of that outcome, thank you very much. So he keeps hacking the terminal’s mainframe, occasionally disabling an Imperial troll’s sylladex and dodging the odd flying body.

            Also, why did all of the ship’s programming have to be written in Nutbeast? He _hates_ Nutbeast.

 

* * *

 

 _Eridan Ampora, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Command Deck_            

 

            The weight of Ahab’s vanishes from your grip and the cool wood of your Science Stick slides into your hand.  Tav rushes past you, lance held boldly ahead, to free Sol from his little glass cell with his freaky animal mind control. You sigh and pick off the two trolls divin’ into his path. You keep tellin’ Tav that his weapon sucks ass and that he should move on to somethin’ more long-range, but he won’t listen to you. Well, infantry can be useful, sometimes, you guess.

            The Condesce is shoutin’ orders. She has been this whole time, but you’ve just started to pay

attention to her now. You wish you had prepared better for _her_. The plan is just a lot of makin’ things up when it comes to the actual Empress. Actually, for once you’d reached the bridge, that was the _entire_ plan.

            “Two squadrons to the Command Deck, now! Intruder alert!” she’s yelling now. “Ranged weapons permitted on the Command Deck by override protocol )(IC 2F41361!”

            “Shit,” you mutter, not-wand twitchin’ in your grip. You absentmindedly cut down another guard who’s actually got the brains to go after you instead of Gam and Kar, but she ain’t got many more brains, since she’s carryin’ a polearm. What part of _ranged weapon_ was so difficult to understand? You look towards the Condesce once more, and see her stalkin’ towards your friends. For once in your life, you don’t think much, just lower the wand in her direction.

            “ERIDAN, H-!” Kar’s yellin’ somethin’ at you, but you’ve already fired and hit the Condesce in the back. She jerks, burnt flesh sloughin’ off her bones. Her body begins to heal immediately, muscle fillin’ into the gap you just made. The Empress turns toward you, slowly, shark-like teeth bared, and you….

            You feel like you’ve made a very big mistake.

            Again.

 

* * *

 

_Karkat Vantas,  )(IC Battleship Condescention, Command Deck_

 

            You try to pay attention to the fight and the way Gamzee’s clubs swing around your head, but you can’t. A _human_. On the _Battleship Condescension._ You take a moment to wonder if you’ve somehow broiled your thinkpan, but then a whip snaps around your sickle and you remember where you are and the answer’s _yes, fuck, yes you have_ , but that doesn’t _explain the frondlicking human._

            He seems to be holding his own, despite the ludicrous situation and – whatever the fuck that thing in his hand is. He’s been pointing the damn thing at Tavros for ages and nothing’s happened yet. What a dumb weapon. You are of the esteemed opinion that humans are weak and pathetically stupid, and that nothing can redeem them…well, except that Jade, John, Rose, Dirk, Roxy, Jake, Jane and Dave don’t need redeeming. But they proved themselves already, so they don’t count at all.

            You take a moment to watch the human dodge a thrown body before slipping under Gamzee’s outstretched arm – when did he get a sword? – and cutting through the arm of the troll about to smash Gamzee’s shoulder with a hammer. The troll shrieks, her hammer falling on her head instead. Purple blood splatters across your face and you very distinctly do _not_ feel sick. Gamzee turns and grins ferally at you, his scars twisting horrendously. “THANKS, Karbro,” he says, and yeah, you’re gonna be sick. “Got yourself some PRETTY COLORS there, huh? How about we up and ADD SOME MORE!” He dives back into the fray and you want to vomit but instead you turn to try and find Tavros and that doomed human when you see _her_.

            The Condesce is coming towards you, a trident in one hand. She’s frowning at you and Gamzee as if you were a pair of mildly interesting insects in her food preparation block. Yeah, the contents of your bilgesack are going to erupt from you like a… like a…

            You’re going to be sick all over the place, basically.

            And that’s when you see it. Behind the Condesce, Sollux’s glass cage is sliding open. Slimy tentacles are pulling free from his flesh and he’s slipping down the mound of biotech like a corpse. But Tavros just grabs him and slings him over his shoulder, seemingly unfazed by all the yellow blood and pink pus he’s smearing on his clothes. The human looks remarkably relieved, which is why he’s not paying attention to the blueblood creeping up behind him.

            “ERIDAN, H-” You start to tell him about the human, to go do something about the human, but it’s too late. He’s shot the Condesce. You watch in horror as her face twists in pain, as she turns to face him. You can see the hole in her midriff, so like Feferi’s had been, except that your princess’s wound never started closing up like that.

            Eridan looks terrified.

            Shit.

            “ERIDAN, RUN!”

 

* * *

 

_The Doctor, Present Day, )(IC Battleship Condescention: Command Deck_

 

            Grinning, the Doctor unlocks the last mechanical switch and the poor Helmsman slips free of his restraints, sliding bonelessly to the floor.  The troll who’d been working to free him picks him up, throws him over his shoulder, and books it out the open door. The Doctor wants to kiss someone, someone like maybe Meenah. You’ve _never_ been able to do something like this, to thwart any of her evil at all, because so many things were _fixed_ in Time but this became miraculously _unfixed_ and everything is _wonderful._

            “ERIDAN, RUN!”

            Startled, the Doctor looks around. That was a very loud, very short troll with nubs for horns yelling at… a very scared young seadweller staring down a very angry Meenah. That’s not good. These kids did something _absolutely incredible_ , and he’s not going to let her fillet them. Kids, well, they aren’t exactly kids, but compared to Meenah and him they were practically babies. Wonderful, _ridiculous_ babies and oh yes _he was doing something._

* * *

 

 

__Karkat Vantas,  )(IC Battleship Condescention, Command Deck_ _

 

            Someone grabs you around the middle and you fight for a second before you realize it’s Gamzee. “GAM- WHAT ARE YOU DOING? PUT ME DOWN, RIGHT NOW.”

            He slings you over his shoulder, shaking his head. “Naw, friend, can’t up and be doing that. We gotta GET OUT OF HERE before she goes after us again, and no offense brother but you ain’t exactly a FAST RUNNER.”

            “Shit,” you mutter. The worst part is that that had actually made logical sense, even if it doesn’t help Eridan or the human. You look for Eridan again as Gamzee rushes you both out the door. He’s also running towards the door, you find to your relief. And the Condesce-

            What.

            You are now officially shithive maggots. Off the proverbial swaying chair. Three potato sticks short of a Troll McDonald’s meal. You have to be, because it’s the only way you can explain… _that_.

            The human had bum rushed the Condesce, knocking her off her feet. Before your astonished eyes, the human, now straddling her, kisses her _on the olfactory organ, says something, and runs out the other door_.

            _What is going on here?_

            It takes three corridors for your thinkpan to restart. When it does, you struggle until Gamzee puts you down.

            “Take it easy, bro. I was just trying to keep your MIRACLE BLOOD from being spilled ALL OVER the MOTHERFUCKING FLOOR.”

            “I KNOW, I know, let’s just get out of here.” The four of you keep running, because there’s really no other choice. “TAVROS, Vriska -?”

            “She, uh, has been in and out of my head the whole time. She should have, already told, Equius and the others.”

            “Good. Are you sure you’re okay carrying Sollux like that? I could take him for you.”

            Tavros gives you an odd sideways look, adjusting Sollux’s limp body on his shoulder. “Between, the robotics in my legs, and the muscles from the lance, this is easy. Besides, you might drop him again, and, uh, I I don’t think he’d appreciate that.”

            You nearly trip over your own feet, and it’s only Eridan’s hand on your arm that keeps you from falling. This has been the strangest day by a mile. First, Nepeta’s particularly competent, and well, you guess she’d always been good at killing things, but…. Then Gamzee doesn’t get stuck in murder mode and basically calls the retreat for you which was kind of what you’d been hoping for, but…. And Tavros _sasses_ you, and he’s always been kind of sassy, but you forget about it a lot, and…. Human! Human on the ship! Strange as all fucking hell. Yes.

            You keep running and decide that this whole plan sucked human balls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the long delay between updates. My computer broke, and I only recently was able to fix it. From now on, there will (hopefully) be less delays like that.
> 
> Executive decision: Troll quirks in spoken dialogue have been cut. The first chapter has been edited. This change doesn't apply to things like volume (or in Karkat's case, more volume) or shortened words, etc. 
> 
> Special thanks to betas:  
> reallyssa.tumblr.com  
> gracioustripod.tumblr.com  
> forgetisawyou.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Equius!” You swoop over to where he’s calmly rewiring something or other. “Time to go! Time to go now!”
> 
> Silence. Then: “One moment.”
> 
> “No! We have to go now! 57 seconds!”
> 
> “A moment, please. I’m almost done here.” He doesn’t even look at you, absorbed as he is on his wires.
> 
> You huff, crossing your arms. In your head, time’s focus narrows, resolves more accurately. “Equius, we don’t have time for games! If what Vriska gave me is correct, I calculate that we have only 52.39 seconds until a whole phalanx of security personnel are here! You’ve done all that you can- We have to go now!”
> 
> “And this will take me 30. I demand that you give me that time.”
> 
> “Equius!”

_Aradia Megido, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Engineering Deck_

 

            Seconds slide by as you work.

            Tick.

            Twelve seconds to destroy a turbine.

            Tock.

            Six seconds to move to a maintenance platform.

            Tick.

            Fourteen seconds to age a platform enough to collapse under a troll’s weight.

            Tock.

            Two seconds to snap your whip around the neck of a Techsassin sneaking to a com unit.

            Tick.

            One second to destroy the com unit.

            Tock.

            Four seconds until the Techsassin loses consciousness.

            Tick.

            Your name is Aradia Megido, and all of time dances in your head.

 

* * *

  


_Terezi Pyrope, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Conference Room 26-8_

 

            Your name is Terezi Pyrope, and color curls in your mind’s eye. You can see your friends fighting, taste Karkat’s desperation and Kanaya’s worry, smell Equius and Nepeta’s quite unusual minds, and it makes you antsy. If only you knew their opponents better – then you could see their minds, too. You should be out there with your friends, you should be helping with more than this.

            Instead, you’re in a conference room with Kanaya, protecting Vriska.

            You know that this part of the plan is important. Unlike you, Vriska can grab people and push them off their paths and onto ones they’d have never thought of from afar, and such an ability is useful here. She’s sitting at the room’s long table, head bowed, as she poisons other troll’s ideas and reweaves the schemata of their minds. So occupied, anyone could kill her; hence you and Kanaya, pacing around the room. You’re waiting for orders, for intruders, for… anything. But there’s nothing.

            It’s unusual, and very, very unnerving. You had all expected that your little headquarters would have been attacked by now, and attacked hard. That’s why they had left both you and Kanaya to guard Vriska.

            The only thing here that’s even remotely reassuring is also one of the most distressing. It’s the way the walls glow with appleberry blast and mustard yellow, and how that screams of Sollux. You’re terribly glad to see him and terribly _angry_ to see him here, like this. You want to tear the wires from the walls - it takes all of your self control not to. It won’t free him; it won’t help. But he is here, and he is still at least a little bit himself. It makes you wonder how much control he has in there, and if any of it might _occasionally_ manifest in malfunctioning security measures.

            Vriska sighs, rubbing her eyes, and it’s pathetic the way you and Kanaya immediately hone in on the small movement. It’s the first she’s made since you’d cleared this room for a temporary base, but still. Kanaya hurries to Vriska’s side while you continue pacing.

            “What is going on out there?” Kanaya asks.

            “Has there been any fighting here?” Vriska demands instead.

            “No! It has been very quiet,” you grin toothily. “One might say… _too_ quiet.”

            Vriska glares at you, an expression rendered amusing by how unfocused her eyes are. She’s going to be absolutely _exhausted_ by the time your team leaves. You anticipate having to carry her out. “Someone’s marked this sector as cleared already, but I can’t figure out who did it. Each of the Condesce’s units think that a _different_ unit did it, but no one can agree on which. Unit 6 thinks it’s Unit 8, Unit 8 is sure it was Unit 25, Unit 25 believes it was Unit 2!!!!!!!! I don’t know what’s going on.”

            “Sollux?” you ask, and then wince. You hadn't meant to sound hopeful.

            “I don’t _know_ , Pyrope!” Vriska throws her hands into the air, fangs gnashing. “But whoever did it is proooooooobably _also_ responsible for the security malfunction in the docking bay. Remember how it didn’t go off when we got here? Something is wrong with the sensors and shit on this ship, and we aren’t the ones doing it!”

            Kanaya lays a hand on Vriska’s shoulder. “Vriska, please. Your accent is doing horrible things to the Alternian language. ‘Something’ does not contain any of the ‘eight’ sounds that you are so found of.”

            You grimace when Vriska opens her mouth and hisses, but Kanaya continues on, composed. “In any case, we can worry about these odd circumstances later. How are our friends?”

            Vriska sighs and closes her eyes once more. Just moments later, the flavors of Sollux’s mind running along the walls wink out of your sight entirely. Your vision, once filled with blue and red has rewritten itself dull grey. Everything’s spinning, which confuses you because you are certain that you are standing still, but the everything else is insisting on spinning, anyways. You feel like you might vomit. How very inconsiderate of both the world and your body!  You put hand on the wall and try very hard to remember how breathing works.

 

* * *

  


_Aradia Megido, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Engineering Deck_

 

            You grin as a support strut ages beneath your hands. It’s a little difficult to do, as you’re trying to leave the paint unmarred while the metal beneath corrodes. You’ve been doing things like this all over the engineering deck, and it’s pretty entertaining. Things that should be operational or new are going to be breaking down due to rust for _months_.  The Techsassins and Mechannihilators, however many are left, are going to be _so confused_. You only regret not being able to see their faces when it happens.

            There’s a finger-light brush against your mind, and you pause. It could be Vriska, but it could be an enemy psychic. Honestly, neither of those options are very appealing, but at least Vriska won’t fuck with you while you’re _here_. Well. She _probably_ won’t.

            There’s another tap, and another, and soon it feels like there’s eight little legs fumbling at the edges of your consciousness. _Vriska_ , you think, only mildly relieved.

            She immediately leaps into your head. _Finally! Gooooooood, Megido._ She then dumps a whole basketful of information into your head without bothering to explain. _See you l8ter, loser!_

            You blink. It’s really disconcerting when she does that. It feels like you suddenly know a whole bunch of things that you never knew before, and that you’ve _always_ known them. You haven’t; it’s all things Vriska’s ripped from other troll’s heads, so you can be forgiven if it takes you a couple seconds to make sense of the images. The moment you _do_ , though, you’re off.

            Wings fluttering through the dry air, you fly over the debris to where Nepeta is ripping through a screen of some sort. “Nepeta! We’ve got to go. They have Sollux, and we need to leave in the next 72 seconds if we’re to make it out before things get really ugly down here.”

            “Okay!”  She leaps over some wreckage and bounds off in the direction of the door.

            “Equius!” You swoop over to where he’s calmly rewiring something or other. “Time to go! Time to go now!”

            Silence. Then: “One moment.”

            “No! We have to go now! 57 seconds!”

            “A moment, please. I’m almost done here.” He doesn’t even look at you, absorbed as he is on his wires.

            You huff, crossing your arms. In your head, time’s focus narrows, resolves more accurately. “Equius, we don’t have time for games! If what Vriska gave me is correct, I calculate that we have only 52.39 seconds until a whole phalanx of security personnel are here! You’ve done all that you can-   _We have to go now!_ ”

            “And this will take me 30. I demand that you give me that time.”

            “Equius!”

 

* * *

 

_The Doctor, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Deck 8_

 

            The Doctor makes his way down the hall, running as usual. Despite the largeness of the Condesce’s ship and her ridiculous sense of what appropriate shipbuilding entailed, he was able to get to the docking bays rather quickly. The only real hindrance was the legions of trolls patrolling the halls and searching for invaders.

            In fact, at just this moment, loud, arrhythmic stomping noises drifted down the hallway in front of the Doctor. Quickly he pointed his sonic screwdriver at a nearby door. With a soft click, it unlocked (Nutbeast! All of the programming, Nutbeast! She did this just to spite him, he knew it!). He wrenched the door open and stepped inside, shutting it quietly behind him. It was only after that that he discovered he was in a broom closet.

            He blinked, twice, and frowned. “A broom closet? Why is it always a broom closet?” he muttered, looking around. “Why does an advanced alien civilization have a broom closet on their ship?” The closet was relatively full, too, with broom and mop handles sticking out every which way. He shifted, trying not to knock anything over. “There is literally no need for a broom closet when you have robots that can clean your ship for you.” It is at this point that Rose Tyler, had she been present, would have made a remark about the broom closet that happened to exist on the TARDIS. As she was not present, the Doctor has managed to avoid a rather silly conversation – one that he is not thinking about at all.

            The patrol passes without incident, and the Doctor sidles out of the closet, eyeing the hallway as if it might sprout another group of trolls at any moment. A mop handle tries to follow him out, aiming for his head. In a movement that could never be described as elegant, he manages to catch it before it gives him a concussion. “Shh!” the Doctor tells it, index finger held to his lips. He stuffs it back in the closet and shuts the door behind it before it can get any more brilliant ideas.

            Then he’s running again, down the hall and around the corner to Docking Bay 4, where the trolls had put the TARDIS when they ripped her out of space.  One more hallway to creep down, no more than fifteen meters long, and the Doctor can peer around the corner and reunite with his beloved ship. From there he can puzzle out how to get onto her and get off of Meenah’s ship with its despicable powering methods.

            Only, when he reaches the door of the Docking Bay and sticks his head around the corner, he finds only a cursory amount of trolls. They aren’t guarding anything. There aren’t any ships there.

            There’s no TARDIS.

 

* * *

 

 

_Tavros Nitram, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Deck 32_

 

            Your name is Tavros Nitram and you can’t believe that you managed to get Sollux out of the Helmsman rig alive. He’s limp over your shoulder, covered in goo and dripping yellow blood.  You, um, might have to burn your shirt when this is done. But - the back of your shirt has ridden up and you can feel his breath. It’s coming in shallow bursts, which isn’t necessarily good, but, um, that really doesn’t matter to you right now.  What matters is that _you have gotten Sollux out of a Helmsman rig and he’s still breathing._

            In the past several years, you - and by you you mean the Resistance movement, not you by yourself, you don’t want to take the credit away from all the many trolls that have helped you - have captured several ships that ran on Helmsman power. Three ships, actually. And for those three Helmsman – and women, one of them was a female troll and, um, there are lots of female Helmsmen, or Helmswomen, you guess, which is to say, the psionic trolls who are forced to suffer in those positions aren’t exclusively male – anyway, for those three Helmspeople, you and Sollux and Vriska spent over a perigee on each one, trying to find ways to detach them from the ships without simply killing them. Each time, you all thought that you had figured out how to save them, and each time you were all very, very wrong. This is the first time you’ve managed to remove a Helmsman from the rig without a display of bright psionics, followed by instant death.

            You got Sollux out alive, and you did it _by yourself_. You feel like you could fly.

            You, um, don’t actually fly, because it seems like every time you fly something bad happens, and your wings are bound down under your shirt, anyways, so you couldn’t even if you wanted to.   Instead you run to where the _Cantown's_ shuttle is and you try not to jostle Sollux too much and you let Karkat and Gamzee and Eridan handle all the Imperial trolls and Drones you meet along the way. Eridan spends a lot of time muttering about how ranged weapons are superior, at least until a seadweller carrying a bow shoots him in the right shoulder. Then he shoots a hole clean through them with his wand, snaps the end of the arrow off with a curse, and keeps fighting, dripping purple blood and muttering about paleolithic weaponry, instead. You carefully push down the urge to punch him in the face, as now really isn’t the time, and it might give Eridan strange ideas, ones that you are not comfortable with him having, ever. Gamzee is both a wonder and a terror. His weapon keeps changing as he fights - clubs to Terezi’s cane sword to a handgun to a hammer and back to clubs again - and it never seems to slow him down. He just shifts with it, sliding easily from one weapon to the next like it didn’t even matter. It’s amazing to watch, or it would be if he weren’t drenched in blood and smiling. That’s just really creepy. Karkat is…determined. There’s something wrong with his left arm, he won’t swing it backwards, but occasionally a troll will go down untouched, either choking on blood or bleeding from the eyes. You remember that happening in the Game, too, but if you mentioned it to Karkat he would call you crazy in a long, convoluted way and eventually no one talked about it at all. You’re sure it’s Karkat doing something, though, and you just hope that whatever it is will only target people who are not your friends, because you don’t want to think about the alternative.

            They’re all very capable and you contribute occasionally by sending a few gusts of wind in opportune moments but… You’re mostly concerned with keeping Sollux alive and as uninjured as possible, and putting him down really isn’t an option, but fighting with him over your shoulder is probably more dangerous, and, he’s the first one you’ve gotten out alive, and you’re going to keep him that way if it’s the last thing you do. It’s something you can’t stop thinking about even as you sprint through the Condesce’s own ship on your robotically enhanced legs. You got him out _alive_.

_You got him out alive._

 

* * *

  

_Aradia Megido, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Engineering Deck_

 

            “Equius!”

            “Do not distract me, lowblood.”

            You huff and cross your arms. You _really_ don’t have time for this and you can already feel pain in your thinkpan. _Probably psionic overuse,_ a more logical part of your brain tells you. “What did you just call me?”

            Equius ignores you. He’s already disconnected a lot of wires and is fiddling with some tubes that were hidden behind them. Very calmly, he disconnects the end of one, fits it with the end of another tube, and then reconnects the tube he’s holding somewhere else. Then he starts reconnecting the wires he’s pulled, but – you run the numbers in your head. He’s going too slowly.

            You raise your hand and the wires rise, too, haloed in the ghostly white of your psionics.

            Equius hesitates and looks at you over his sunglasses. “Aradia? I need to put those back.”

            “You’re taking too long,” you tell him, grimacing. Definitely psionics overuse – your head is pounding. You really should stop. Instead, you push through. “This is faster. Tell me what colors go where.”

            There’s a soft click as Equius decaptchalogues a towel.

 

* * *

 

_Terezi Pyrope, )(IC Battleship Condescension,  Conference Room 26-8_

 

            The world resolves itself before you, one hundred percent still and grey, and there’s no longer much risk of losing your dinner. Your palm stings - you'd put a dent in the wall, earlier. Oops.

            There’s a cool hand pressed to your forehead. Kanaya, your nose tells you. “Are you alright?” she asks.

            “Perfectly fine! Just...lost my balance for a second!”

            She frowns, but nods anyway. You had better be fine - Kanaya can’t carry you both _and_ fight your way back to the shuttle.

            You sniff, annoyed. All of the colors managed to remain grey - hopefully Sollux is okay. At least Eridan’s plum-y confidence is back in your Sight and only slightly tinged over with desperation. Your fingers tighten around your cane as you shove down the frantic desire to run towards the bridge. Vriska shifts again and the tension between your shoulders only builds.

            “They have him!” Vriska yells, triumphant despite the clear exhaustion in her voice.

            You swallow. “Status?”

            “Tavros says… bleeding. Covered in goo. But alive! Very much alive! …Or at least he’s breathing. They’re on their way back, and so is Aradia’s team. Everyone else is just fine.”

            Despite how much you’d really like to, you don’t sit down anywhere. Later, you promise yourself. Later.

            Instead you give them your favorite smile – the one that shows all of your teeth. “Time to go, ladies!”

 

* * *

  

_Aradia Megido, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Engineering Deck_

 

            Equius nods. “We’re finished.”

            “Can we go now? 21 seconds!”

            “Yes, we may.” He rises without another word and dashes towards your exit. He doesn’t even go around the wrecked turbine in his way, just leaps over it like another troll might jump over a corpse in the road. There are footprints dug into the metal afterwards, but that might be the last of engineering’s problems.

            You fly over the turbine yourself. Duh.

            Your exit is the service ladder you had used to access this part of the ship and is a fairly typical maintenance tool - metal, attached to the wall, and anyone on it is completely open to everyone in the room until it disappears into the high vaulted ceiling on its journey to the next floor. Nepeta’s bouncing impatiently by the base of it. “What took you so long?”

            “Equius had something he needed to do that was important enough to risk death, apparently. You two go first, I’ll cover our escape.”

            Nepeta tilts her head curiously but she disarms her claws and takes off, scaling the ladder with surprising speed. Equius climbs after her, no less swiftly but far enough behind to avoid her bladed mechanical tail. You fly up, keeping one eye on them, one on the corridor opposite, and mental tabs on the timer. If you could, you would levitate them up to the roof at least and go from there, but you’ve pressed your psionics too much today already. The last thing you want to do is drop them halfway there.

            Well, there’s no helping it – you’re going to have to fight this security detail in only twelve seconds. As little as you like it, you’re going to need every advantage that you can get, what with psionic blowout becoming a greater risk every time you use them. Therefore, you take a few of those seconds to Ouija through your sylladex. Two more seconds, and your outfit changes.

            Instead of the plain black uniform that you – and everyone else! – had been wearing, you are now clad in a bright green dress. It reeks of ozone and death, but that is to be expected. Your whip has switched out for two white wands teeming with power. They feel odd in your hands, familiar and unfamiliar all at once. You can feel their power humming across your skin. Far away, Horrorterrors whisper, and you think that, if you tried just a little harder, you could hear the words.

            Your hair didn’t quite match the costume, to be honest; it hung free, as usual, and would get in your face once you channeled your psionics through the Quills of Echidna. That’s okay; you were told by a reliable source that it would probably only aid the effect you were going for. That same troll also gave you the dress and the wands because, according to her, you’d be needing them.

            Your ancestor might be more than a little odd, but she seems to know what she’s talking about.

            At least the information Vriska gave you was good – the security detail you were expecting shows up only 2.5 seconds after you expected them. You frown and check Nepeta and Equius’s status – they’re only a quarter of the way up.

            You’re too tired for this, your head hurts, and the Quills always make you feel like your skin is trying to peel from your flesh. You wonder how Rose deals with them. You hope that Sollux is okay. The Fiduspawn battle music is running through your head and you don’t even care.

            Resigned, you lift your wands.

 

* * *

  

_Tavros Nitram, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Deck 29…28…27…_

 

            You can’t believe they never turned off the hydraulic-based vertical transport equipment. You think that might have been step one.

            You’re not sure, but you think that the vertical transport equipment’s music might be from Fiduspawn.

 

* * *

 

_Terezi Pyrope, )(IC Battleship Condescension, Deck 8_

 

            As expected, you have to carry Vriska.  Or, rather, half drag her down the hallway while she “walks” while mainly supported by you and complains from your shoulder that she is “perfectly okay, reaaaaaaaally.”

            People who are okay don’t faint after standing or walk across a room looking like a newborn antlerbeast! This is 100% scientific fact and the court, smelling deceit, had made an impartial decision otherwise. By which you mean, you sniffed in Kanaya’s direction, eyebrow raised; Kanaya looked at you and revved her chainsaw. You decided that it might be better for everyone involved if you were the one to deal with your sister.

            You stagger down the corridor, dragging along what amounted to a floppy corpse. You are less than useless right now, but that’s almost okay. Ahead of you, Kanaya is like every wiggler’s dayterror. Most trolls don’t even believe Rainbow Drinkers exist. Encountering one in all of her snarling, glowing glory, wielding a chainsaw, in the middle of the Condesce’s flagship? Yeah, you know for a fact that that wasn’t a thing that even crossed their boring little minds. And yet, here you are.

            Most of the fighting Kanaya handles spectacularly, but you get your share of stabs in. Vriska actually rouses herself and her powers, putting several trolls to sleep or stealing away their luck. “Psychic!” she gasps after the fourth troll, an indigo, manages to trip and knock himself out with his own club. In that case, you can’t really complain, though she is getting worryingly more quiet after each encounter.

            You do have to admit you are concerned. Her powers really were never intended to be used this way or for so long. She told you all that it was no big deal, but you think only maybe Nepeta  and Karkat believed her. Fortunately, you aren’t that far from the _Cantown’s_ shuttle, so it will be over soon enough.

            It’s only when you’re down the hall from Docking Bay 4 that, beyond the very distracting scent of blood dripping from your weapons and Vriska’s hair that you smell something strange. “Kanaya! Maybe you can help a poor blind girl out? I swear that I’m smelling a human down the hallway, but that cannot be correct! What’s really there?”

            There’s a break in Kanaya’s footsteps, as if she had stumbled. “Uh.”

            “Kanaya!”

            “Terezi. I think you are right. That is a human.”

            “On the Condesce’s ship?”

            “Yes, I believe so.”

            “…can’t control ‘umans…” Vriska tells your grubscars.

            For a moment you can’t think of anything to say at all. Then you think, we can’t leave it here. “Kanaya! We can’t leave it here.”

            “I know.” You hear her running, a purple-stained bright light.

            The human is male, you think, from the timbre of his voice when he protests. “Hey! No, I need to get back to my ship, let go of -. Wait. You’re a Rainbow Drinker? I thought those were extinct, what –“

            “Excuse me!” you interrupt, banging the flat of your sword cane against a wall. It rings. Even tired, worried, and covered in blood, you know how to look cool. “I’m sure there are a lot of explanations we could be making right now. But first I would like it a lot if we were somewhere safer! Come on, our ship is right here.”

            Just when you were hoping that your day wouldn’t be anymore interesting than it already was, a puzzle goes and dances in front of your nose. How could a girl say no?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Sorry this chapter took so long - I know you've been waiting for a long time! Thanks so much for your patience. I really hope this chapter has both met and exceeded your expectations. The whole life thing has been really kicking my butt lately and I haven't had all that much time to write. Don't be afraid to check out my tumblr (ingloriousheist.tumblr.com) to see what's going on with me and or ask me questions!
> 
> On that note, this AU now also has a blog - thistleverse.tumblr.com. Check out there for random worldbuilding snippets, me complaining about how spaceships even work, or to ask questions about the 'verse!

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired vaguely by this one picture on tumblr: http://ingloriousheist.tumblr.com/post/42266934408/pfdiva-bemusedlybespectacled-tychosexual
> 
> Super special awesome thanks to everyone who's helping me with this monstrosity! Find the whole list at the thistleverse.tumblr.com.


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